History
Further information: Volta–Niger and Benue–CongoYoruba is classified within the Edekiri languages, which together with the isolate Igala form the Yoruboid group of languages within the Volta-Niger branch of the Niger-Congo phylum. The linguistic unity of the Niger-Congo phylum dates to deep prehistory, estimates ranging around 15 kya (the end of the Upper Paleolithic). The Atlantic–Congo core of this group would have formed roughly 8,000 years ago. The Benue-Congo branch (which also includes the Bantoid branch) separated from Atlantic-Congo around the 5th millennium BC, ultimately spreading out in the Bantu expansion, while Volta-Niger is one of the branches formed by the peoples who remained in the Atlantic-Congo core territory.
The Yoruba group are assumed to have developed out of undifferentiated Volta–Niger populations by the 1st millennium BC. Settlements of early Yoruba speakers are assumed to correspond to those found in the wider Niger area from about the 4th century BC, especially at Ife. As the North-West Yoruba dialects show more linguistic innovation, combined with the fact that Southeast and Central Yoruba areas generally have older settlements, suggests a later date of immigration for Northwest Yoruba.
Read more about this topic: Yoruba Language
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Boys forget what their country means by just reading “the land of the free” in history books. Then they get to be men, they forget even more. Liberty’s too precious a thing to be buried in books.”
—Sidney Buchman (1902–1975)
“A great proportion of the inhabitants of the Cape are always thus abroad about their teaming on some ocean highway or other, and the history of one of their ordinary trips would cast the Argonautic expedition into the shade.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In history as in human life, regret does not bring back a lost moment and a thousand years will not recover something lost in a single hour.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)